Jazz is an original American musical art form originating around the start of the 20th century in New Orleans. Its roots lie in the fruitful collision between African and Western musical traditions; it was, and remains, highly open to influences from many different cultures and musical traditions (from Jelly Roll Morton's "Spanish tinge" to the Latin and African experiments of the 1950s and 1960s to current attempts to borrow from rock, hip-hop and pop), and has become an artform with a global reach, but it remains most closely identified with the profound cultural contributions of African Americans. Jazz became a music that bridged many worlds: never shaking off its whiff of an illicit subculture (beginning with its shady origins in turn-of-the-century saloons and bordellos) but also becoming for a time the sound of American pop music, and yet also inspiring the dawning recognition that it was (as one polemicist has put it) "America's Classical Music." Reaching its height of popularity in the 1930s and early 1940s with the big-band craze, it gradually lost its wider popularity as it was displaced by rock and other musics, a development that pained or perplexed many older musicians and fans and led to a variety of responses from younger ones (ranging from attempts to update and alter jazz into a new artform with wider appeal, to a self-conscious attempt to return to and recreate earlier styles of jazz). Yet even as it has (by and large) had to settle for a smaller audience of aficionados, jazz has remained surprisingly durable music, continuing to change, grow and assimilate new ideas from the contemporary music scene.

Jazz is notoriously hard to define, and few generalizations can account for all of its over-one-hundred-year history. Most jazz involves improvisation, both in the "solos" which are central to a jazz performance, and in the accompaniment, which is created spontaneously by the musicians over the bare framework of the tune (its melody and chords); the result is a complexly polyrhythmic music, which thrives on continuous (call and response) interaction between performers. A good jazz performance "swings" – a term that both refers to a specific rhythmic approach (emphasizing the offbeats 2 and 4 in the bar and turning smooth pairs of eighth notes into lightly assymetrical "swung eighths") and, more generally, to the ineffable rhythmic grace and power of the best jazz performances. Jazz adopts Western music's concept of tonality, but also bends it with devices like blue notes – notes (usually the third or fifth) that are deliberately played or sung flat in order to give added emotional power to a performance.

History

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Jazz has roots in the combination of Western and African music traditions, including spirituals, blues and ragtime, stemming ultimately from West Africa, western Sahel, and New England's religious hymns and hillbilly music, as well as in European military band music. After originating in African American communities near the beginning of the 20th century, jazz gained international popularity by the 1920s. Since then, jazz has had a pervasive influence on other musical styles worldwide. Even today, various jazz styles continue to evolve.

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NPR Topics: Jazz

Stanley Clarke: A Lyrical Bass Player
Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:43:00 -0500
When he was only 25, the word "legend" was already being used to describe Stanley Clarke. Now, he's a king of the acoustic and electric jazz worlds, having won every major award available to a bass player. Hear an interview with the jazz/fusion innovator.
Sun Ra: 'Cosmic Swing'
Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:00:00 -0500
Whenever he took the stage, audiences were guaranteed a musical spectacle. Half mystic, half visionary, the pianist and bandleader charted a relentlessly adventurous course through the jazz tradition.
Leftover Candy: Top 5 Jazz Halloween Songs
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 14:03:00 -0500
From the lighthearted and fancy to the haunting and grotesque, NPR station WDUQ highlights some spooky Halloween music you can listen to all year long. Hear jazz vocalists conjure different ghosts out of classic tunes, while horn players coax the demons out of their instruments.
Terence Blanchard: Musical Musings on 'God's Will'
Thu, 25 Oct 2007 11:17:00 -0500
The latest CD from New Orleans trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard is A Tale of God's Will, whose subtitle is "A Requiem for Katrina." Parts of the recording were heard in Spike Lee's HBO documentary When the Levees Broke.
Red Norvo: 'Mr. Swing'
Wed, 24 Oct 2007 06:12:00 -0500
He was a sideman with the early stars of jazz, led one of the most admired bands on the swing era, and catalyzed the careers of musicians like Charles Mingus. All the while, Red Norvo was bringing the mallet instruments to jazz.
Buddy Collette: 'Man of Many Parts'
Wed, 17 Oct 2007 06:00:00 -0500
Reedman Buddy Collette has spent most of his music career on the West Coast, out of the national spotlight. But it would be a mistake to overlook his distinguished career as a jazz educator, activist, composer and, of course, phenomenal multi-instrumentalist.

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